Virginia Supreme Court Rejects Lower Court's Attempt to Clarify "Sudden Mechanical or Structural Change" Rule
Reversing an earlier decision of the state’s Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court of Virginia held that the phrase “injury by accident” linked two discrete concepts—an injury and an accident—that compensability required both, and that Virginia’s “sudden mechanical or structural change” element existed not only to establish that an injury arose from an “accident,” to the exclusion of gradual onset, it also defined the “injury” segment of the compensation equation. Thus, unless there had been a “mechanical or structural change” in the employee’s particular body part, there was no compensable injury to it [Alexandria City Pub. Sch. v. Handel, 2020 Va. LEXIS 115 (Oct. 15, 2020)]. The Court of Appeals, therefore, committed error when it held the employee need not demonstrate a sudden mechanical or structural change to each part of the body in which the claimant was experiencing pain for the injury to be compensable.
Background
Claimant slipped on a puddle of hand sanitizer on her classroom floor and fell on her right side. She was then taken by ambulance to a hospital with multiple injuries, including pain in her shoulder. In claimant’s notice of injury report, she indicated that she had injured her right ankle, knee, hip, shoulder, neck, and back in the fall.
Claimant consulted her first orthopedist within a week of the fall and again 29 months later. He concluded that her shoulder pain was nerve related and referred her to another orthopedist for a second opinion. The second orthopedist detected no abnormalities in the medical imaging of Claimant’s right shoulder, but noted that Claimant complained of pain radiating down her arm with numbness in her hand. This second orthopedist concluded Claimant had a neurological condition in her shoulder and referred her to physical therapy.
The deputy commissioner ruled that there was no dispute in the evidence about how Claimant had been injured, that there was a causal connection between the accident and the shoulder complaints, and that Claimant had suffered an injury by accident to her shoulder. The Commission found no error upon review. The Court of Appeals affirmed (see Alexandria City Pub. Schs. v. Handel, 70 Va. App. 349, 827 S.E.2d 384 (2019); for my earlier discussion of the Court of Appeals decision, click here). Quoting , the Court of Appeals observed that to establish a compensable injury by accident, a claimant must prove:
- an identifiable accident;
- that occurs at some reasonably definite time;
- an obvious sudden mechanical or structural change in the body;
- a causal connection between the incident and the bodily change.
Sudden Mechanical or Structural Change
The Court of Appeals underscored that the focus of the “sudden mechanical or structural change” element was to establish suddenness—i.e., that an accident had occurred—rather than mechanical or structural change. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals concluded that because Claimant had proven a single “sudden mechanical or structural change” anywhere in her body, she had established an injury by accident, and her evidence that her shoulder injury was causally connected to the accident made it compensable even if there was no proof that the shoulder injury was connected to the proven mechanical or structural change. The employer again appealed.
Supreme Court Analysis
The Virginia Supreme Court noted that the school system asserted that the Court of Appeals erred because the “sudden mechanical or structural change” element did not exist solely to establish that an injury arose from an accident, to the exclusion of gradual onset. Rather, the “mechanical or structural change” also defined the “injury” part of the “injury by accident” qualification for an award of compensation. Thus, it argued, the phrase “injury by accident” linked two discrete concepts, an injury and an accident, and compensability required both. For example, an accident might occur without causing injury, and an injury might be suffered that is not caused by an accident. Neither of these were compensable as “injury by accident.” The school system also contended that the Supreme Court had repeatedly used “mechanical or structural change” to define an injury. The high court agreed.
No Change in Body Part—No Injury
The Supreme Court said the Court of Appeals erred by ruling that “a claimant does not need to prove a structural or mechanical change in every body part affected by an obvious accident as long as there is at least one sudden mechanical or structural change and each injury is caused by the accident.” [70 Va. App. at 355-56]. The Court stressed that without a change in a body part, there was no injury to it. The Court, therefore, vacated the judgment of the Court of Appeals.